


Attention Span

by luxshine



Series: 7 Sins Challenge [1]
Category: Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Popslash
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-20
Updated: 2011-03-20
Packaged: 2017-10-17 04:10:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxshine/pseuds/luxshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Envy. Kevin is a bit slow to realize what he really wants</p>
            </blockquote>





	Attention Span

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first one of the seven fics for the 7_deadly_sins challenge at livejournal. They are not going to be connected fics, instead, I’m going to do 7 different fics around the same premise. Regarding this particular fic, I am only going to say one thing: Envy and Greed are a little too similar for my tastes. Many thanks to milosflaca who joined the challenge to give me moral support, helped me get the difference between Envy and Greed, and read this in way too many different incarnations; and to raynedanser who did a very through beta job. All mistakes are my own.

Kevin Richardson considered himself a good man. He had no major vices, took care of his family and always took the moral high road in any situation.

Which was why the first one surprised at his reactions towards *N Sync was himself.

Logically, he knew that it wasn’t their fault that Transcon was a shitty company, doing shitty deals. He knew that there was no reason why he had to give them the cold shoulder every time they crossed paths.

But he still hated them.

Especially Chris Kirkpatrick.

As time passed, he learned to live with *N Sync’s continuous existence. He stopped the attacks; he managed to be polite, even to Lance Bass who seemed unable to forgive the Backstreet Boys for their behavior.

However, Kevin couldn’t stop hating Chris.

He hated the way Chris acted around the other members of *N Sync, around everyone. Affectionate, funny, as if he had no cares in the world even in the middle of a legal battle that both mirrored and shadowed the one that the Backstreet Boys had to endure. The way Chris’s voice soared high up, how Chris could be heard no matter what, even if his solos were slowly disappearing from *N Sync’s songs.

He hated that Chris could smile to others, even when he had been wearing braces at 24.

He couldn’t stop watching Chris, either. Whenever the two groups had to meet, his eyes were inevitably drawn towards the short figure, his ears strained to hear whatever Chris was saying.

At first, he told himself he was just watching out for the Backstreet Boys’s interests. When that excuse stopped working, he tried to argue that Chris called attention to himself, with the stupid braids and his annoying habit of jumping on everyone’s backs.

On everyone’s but Kevin’s.

When the two groups made some sort of peace with each other, at least privately, was when he realized that Chris also hugged, and poked and had fun with the other four members of the Backstreet Boys.

Kevin was never included.

It wasn’t that Chris wasn’t friendly towards him. Despite all that Kevin had said about *N Sync, about Chris, Chris seemed to not hold a grudge over that. But Kevin knew Chris wasn’t as friendly with him as he was with the others.

One day, seeing Chris talk animatedly with Howie at some award ceremony backstage, he realized that he was angry at Howie. Because Chris was talking to Howie, and not to him.

It was then when he admitted to himself that his obsession with Chris had much more to do with how much he liked Chris, and less with how much he had wanted to believe he disliked him.

* * *

Kevin had managed to keep his self discovery shelved in the deepest corner of his subconscious for the best part of a year. It became a lot easier when they changed labels because without the similar schedule, the only times when they did cross paths were award ceremonies and special events.

He kept watching Chris, but if anyone noticed that he was no longer looking at him with the usual hate and fury, they didn’t say.

His carefully constructed card castle of denial went tumbling down one September afternoon.

*N Sync was leaving Transcon, signing with Jive.

His first thought was the non-charitable ‘Can’t they leave anything mine alone?’ that he tried to ignore because it was childish and selfish. His second thought was ‘I’m going to have to see Chris being nice to people that are not me,’ and that one was a lot harder to push in the ‘not to think about’ file of his brain.

His cousin found him, hours later, sitting on the floor of his hotel room watching old *N Sync videos on mute.

“Cuz? What’s wrong?” Brian asked, sitting down next to him. “Still checking ideas that they stole from us?”

That had been a sore point for them when they had fired Johnny Wright. It wasn’t that Kevin really believed that Chris and the rest of *N Sync had actively stole their ideas, but one too many coincidences at their shows had made Kevin mistrust every single member of their then mutual management.

“No. I’m just thinking…” Kevin closed his eyes for a second, as he paused the video. To his bad luck (Or maybe it was good luck, he really couldn’t say), the frame stopped in one close up of Chris, his white and black braids styled in a strange pineapple look, dressed in a white tuxedo. “We shouldn’t stay on Jive.”

“You sure?”

“We left Transcon because we couldn’t trust them to have our best interest at heart. Why would Jive be any different?”

Brian stayed silent for a moment, watching the paused image. “Do you think they want what we have as much as you want what they have?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kevin shot a glare at his cousin.

“I’m just saying,” Brian shrugged.

“That didn’t sound like ‘just saying’, Brian. What do you think I want?”

“I really don’t know, cuz.” There was a long silence, and Kevin counted mentally to ten. Brian was very smart, and very observant, but there was no way that he could have known what Kevin was thinking when he watched Chris Kirkpatrick. “But I know that all of us have moved on from the Transcon situation, no matter how much you say you don’t. And I know that you keep a close watch on Chris all the time. Most would say that he bothers you, but I know you. You want something that Chris has, but I can’t imagine what that is.”

* * *

A couple of months later, during the Billboards awards after party, Kevin finally understood.

He had been thinking about his cousin’s words, and had more or less decided that Brian was wrong. There was nothing that Chris had that Kevin could want. Four friends who were as close as brothers? Kevin had them too. A career doing what he loved? Check. Thousands of fans? Not only was Kevin sure that the Backstreet Boys collectively had more fans than *N Sync, he was also sure that individually, he had to have more fans than Chris.

There was nothing Chris had that Kevin could want.

Except Chris himself.

The realization hit Kevin hard, and even when he didn’t drink, he made a beeline to the bar.

He wanted Chris.

He didn’t want to think about the fact that he had spent the last years of his life confusing want with hate.

It was at the bar where Chris found him.

“You look a little too glum for a guy who just won four awards, you know?”

“Go away,” Kevin answered, not bothering to turn around. It was useless, in any case. Chris Kirkpatrick had every reason in the world to hate him. Wanting Chris was a pointless exercise. It was a stupid notion, being attracted to Chris’s freedom and joy.

“Woo. Calm down, just trying to make conversation here.” Chris stayed next to him, which irritated Kevin. He wanted to be alone with only his glass of beer that he hadn’t touched anyway.

“There are a lot of people in this room to whom you can have conversations with,” Kevin muttered. The ‘You usually ignore me,’ blissfully stayed in his head.

“You really hate me, don’t you?” The question that was more of a statement than a question, really, took Kevin by surprise. “I mean, at first, I thought it was just my imagination, since you seemed to hate all of us… But it’s me, isn’t it?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Kevin kept his voice low, pointedly avoiding watching Chris.

“You know what? Forget it. I just wanted to know what the fuck did I do to you that apparently my continued existence makes you hate me, but obviously, it’s not working, so, bye. Have a nice life.”

“Wait.” Regardless of what he was feeling, Kevin hadn’t been raised to be rude to people for no reason. Chris stopped and turned to see him, expectantly. At that moment, Kevin realized that his epiphany had been right. Chris looked good with his new short spiked hair. “I’m sorry. You just got me at a bad moment.”

Chris, to his surprise, shrugged and smiled. “It happens. I’m the king of finding people at bad moments. Just ask Lance.”

Kevin grimaced. “I don’t think I’ll be asking Lance anything. He _does_ hate us.”

“Not really.” Chris walked back to Kevin’s side, which made Kevin feel a little better. Now that he knew the real source of his annoyance against Chris, he could work in ignoring it and treating Chris like a decent human being. “Lance just has to learn to take things less personally.”

“Well, maybe I could apologize to him too,” Kevin mused. “After all, some of the things I said were personal.”

“Mn.” Chris nodded. “So? Why the long face? These things are supposed to be fun, you know?”

“That they are,” Kevin agreed, taking a drink from his glass before frowning. It was stale, and slightly warm. How long had he spent watching it before Chris came over?

“Congratulations, by the way,” Chris said, making Kevin forget about his warm beer. “You’ve really made competition harder for the rest of us.”

“Four awards aren’t…” Kevin began, amused with Chris’s compliment, when Chris interrupted again.

“Sexiest Pop Star. I’ve always wondered… do they poll people by phone? Or do they have volunteers going around with pictures asking random people who they think is sexier?”

Kevin choked a laugh, but as he had been trying again to finish his beer, started coughing. Chris, without missing a beat, started patting his back.

“Well, that’s a new way to get rid of the competition, I guess,” Chris said, but there was a hint of worry in his voice.

“AJ…” Kevin managed to say between coughs, “AJ stopped me a couple of times before I poisoned your food.”

Chris stopped, looking alarmed for an instant before grinning.

“A Joke! Funny and sexy! I see you deserve your award.”

Kevin chuckled. “They don’t just keep me around because of my looks.”

“It’s a very good reason to keep you around,” Chris said, making Kevin stop and look at him seriously.

“Are you flirting with me, Kirkpatrick?”

“It depends. Will you hit me if I am?”

Kevin managed to smile, although inside he was still wondering how things had gotten to this point. “No. I don’t think I would hit you… I am flirting back, so hitting you would be ruining my efforts.”

“You’re flirting back, huh?”

“Trying to.”

Chris nodded, then pointed at the exit with his head. “Wanna get out of here?”

“Lead the way.” Kevin smiled as Chris’s grin grew bigger. Apparently, Kevin had not only missed his own want, he had also missed the fact that Chris was an equal opportunity man.

Or, Kevin reflected remembering his anger upon seeing Chris with, say, Howie, maybe he hadn’t missed it as much as he had wanted to ignore it.

“I just have to tell the guys I’m going. Wait here.” Chris practically bounced to where Joey and Lance were talking to someone else, and Kevin felt once again the familiar pang of anger upon seeing Chris talking with someone.

But now he recognized that anger for what it really was. A not so healthy jealousy over Chris that he had managed to ignore for years.

But when Chris smiled in his general direction, he couldn’t help but think that there was an easy solution to that.

Now that he had Chris’s attention, he would just have to find interesting ways to keep it.


End file.
